“Mo gbadura pe o ko gbagbe ara rẹ.” Words meant to serve as a carapace, a reminder of self, yet bent on haunting for an eternity. Iya–fondly renamed Iya Tógùn by Tọ́ṣọ̀ and the rest of her siblings as a tribute to their first brother who they never met–had gripped the sides of Tọ́ṣọ̀’s cheeks as she whispered them that day at the airport, eyes bearing the weight of unshed tears and the fear of giving up her first daughter to the demands of a land foreign to the both of them. Iya Tógùn’s fingers tightened around Tọ́ṣọ̀’s face in hopes of passing all her unspoken pleas in that very prayer. May you never lose your sense of self. It had been an odd way of bidding goodbye, yet there was something about the way her mother had uttered them–each shaky word and syllable punchier than the previous and heavy with an expectation to hold on identity. Five years down the line–five langarous years of slowly chipping away self and nimbly folding to the whims of identity erasure until she’d become a puppet to social ideations and colonial acceptance–and the words held more weight to Tọ́ṣọ̀ than they did in that simple embrace.
Ma padanu ori ti ara rẹ. Ọmọ́tọ́ṣọ̀ laughed with resigned acceptance as she held the split ends of her once bouncy curls, now limp and near lifeless from over manipulation driven by a compulsion to satisfy a supercilious society unaccepting of ethnical nonconformity as Iya Tógùn’s words continued their violent ringing in her head as though refusing to release her until its subtext fully registered.
Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in her recently purchased Manhattan apartment–a fruit of four years toiling to climb corporate ladders and capitalistic bridges as an Investment Analyst–Ọmọ́tọ́ṣọ̀ could confidently admit to herself that the scrawny girl folded in her mother’s arms that day at the airport–desperately clutching an overused Ghana must go bag with no idea on how to navigate this new immigrant life–was lost. Tọ́ṣọ̀ had grown up with an increased sense of belonging and self-ownership–amidst the obsequious poverty and hardship she was used to–doggedly protecting her outlook on life with a head full of springy waves and a matted corn-rows that had become a landmark of her personality in the unassuming hometown of Ìlèkè.
Tilting her head to the side, Tọ́ṣọ̀ gripped the back of her head, as an unfamiliar sound–yet accurately reflecting her inner turmoil–left her lips and wondered who this person that stood in her living room was. These nappy curls, an uneven texture–some coiled, some frizzy–malleable into different forms and styles telling cardinal stories from long generations ago, forcefully tamed into a more ‘becoming’ form–instead of hanging free and wild like it was created to–because of society’s punishment of the desire to hold on to self-identity. And in the same way, Tọ́ṣọ̀ realised she’d unwittingly done the same to her character and every element that made her her.
The change wasn’t instantaneous, neither was it calculated, yet it had creeped in as unobtrusively as it could. From days of dimming the lights of the eccentric Yoruba dialect that followed her English since arriving in New York to nights of pretending to be an avid wig lover on night outs to detract the attention her unruly hair garnered from curious onlookers with questions of “can I touch it?” on their lips and long weekends of burning and straightening the roots and ends to look more like her white colleagues’ hair after ‘friendly’ HR reminders to fix your look throughout the week she’d made the unfortunate mistake of wearing a wash-and-go style into the office.
Iya Tógùn’s constant plea of remaining true to herself had become an anthem whenever she spoke with Tọ́ṣọ̀. Because while Iya refused to be plagued by the demons of westernisation and vices of wokeism, there was an intrinsic wisdom she embodied when it came to issues of identity and culture that she’d been adamant on passing down to Ọmọ́tọ́ṣọ̀. Ma gbagbe ara rẹ. Never forget who you are.
Watching pellets of rain run down the windows–the gloomy September day enough to match her mood but not adequate to dispel the sad euphoria from her mother’s words–Tọ́ṣọ̀ wondered how she’d quickly allowed herself to become sunken with the world’s expectation of her blackness when it had only ever been loudly celebrated back in Ìlèkè. It didn’t make sense anymore, this idea of shrinking and reshaping to conform, instead of embracing individual identity and cultural continuity especially in a new land that encouraged detachment and disconnection from true self. Lifting the scissors to her damaged roots, Ọmọ́tọ́ṣọ̀ knew with utmost certainty that it was time to reclaim her true essence and live in alliance with her mother’s words: Ma gbagbe ara rẹ.
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Oluwabunmi Adaramola works in academia by day and spends the rest of the time in her rather overactive imagination. Oluwabunmi loves sentimental things, and as much as she tries to deny it, she’s also a hopeless romantic. When she’s not reading enemies (or sometimes friends) -to-lovers romance stories, she’s day dreaming about Amala.
Oluwabunmi’s short stories appear or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, The Kalahari Review, The African Writer, The SprinNG Literary Movement, Akpata Magazine, AfriHill Press, Noisy Streetss (2024) KePress Anthologies (2024) and elsewhere. Her short story, Amala is a Kaleidoscope of Colours and Feelings appears in Brittle Paper’s 2024 Festive Anthology. Her story, Say My Name When the Crow Calls, was shortlisted for the 2024 Akpata Editor’s Choice Prize for Fiction.
Oluwabunmi has an unhealthy caffeine addiction and is an unrepentant bibliophile with an overwhelming stack of cheesy romance novels.
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Read – A New Page – A Short Story by Chiamaka Favour – Nigeria
